Quiet Desperation
by cinnamon badge
Summary: [TomCecilia] Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.
1. Act One

**A/N: **Inspired by the ever-so-fleeting cameo of Tom Riddle Sr's riding partner in Bob Ogden's memory. And yes, the title is from a Pink Floyd song, even though this fic is set in the 1920s. Harry Potter is not mine.

**Quiet Desperation**

From almost the moment they were first seen together, everyone said they were a perfect match: Tom Riddle, with his Grecian god good looks and even temper, the son of the richest man in Little Hangleton; and Cecilia Spencer, the banker's daughter, equally fair and lovely. They were seen riding together nearly every day during the summer, their horses shining black and brown in the sun and tracing the ridges of the dales around the village with their heavy hooves. In the winter, Tom would take Cecilia out in his cutter, and they made tracks all over the pristine white snow, drinking hot chocolate and singing Christmas carols.

"A handsome pair, they are," the old ladies in Little Hangleton would cluck to each other, at their garden parties and quilting circles. "Very suited for each other. A smart couple, indeed," they would say, and other hyperboles expressing the same.

And Cecilia agreed with them all, wholeheartedly. Mrs. Spencer was determined to make the match a reality, and spent many hours of the day coaching her eldest child on what to say and how to act in the lofty Tom Riddle's presence, but Cecilia hardly needed the instruction. She knew Tom was the man she would spend the rest of her life with, knew it as surely as she could tell when someone was lying, or when a storm was coming. Tom was unquestionably hers, and she was his, and nothing could change that.

"You've heard the _rumors_, Miss Spencer," he would say to her, as they strolled down Little Hangleton's main street, headed for the nickelodeon or a friend's house.

"Indeed, Mr. Riddle," Cecilia would say, giving him a sly look. "It's _all_ over town."

"They say that those two will be _married_ one day, Miss Spencer," Tom said, unable to keep his lips from twitching towards a smile. "Can you _imagine_?"

"I cannot, Mr. Riddle. What a _scandal_, for sure."

She would always remember that summer -- that entire year, really. That was the year that what had once been a fanciful dream and a private joke had started inching towards being real. They rode out together to the highest hill outside Little Hangleton one afternoon, gazing down into the valleys around them. Yorkshire was beautiful at this time of year, and smelled of rain and earth. Why anyone would want to live in city places like London or Liverpool confounded them, for everything they could ever want was right here, in Little Hangleton.

"Ceil."

Cecilia turned to him, surprised. He hardly ever used her first name, not even when it was just the two of them. What shocked her even more was the deathly serious look on his face.

"Is something wrong, Tom?" she breathed. She reached out to take his hand, where it rested on his thigh, and he twined their fingers together.

"I want to -- you need to know that I haven't been ignoring what everyone's been saying," he said, looking directly into her eyes. "They say we'll be married one day. And that's what I want for us, Ceil. More than anything."

Cecilia thought her heart might have skipped a beat. "Me too," she said, smiling broadly. "Oh Tom, that's what I want as well."

He smiled back, that smile of his that never failed to melt her, and leaned closer. Their horses were of similar heights, so there was no awkwardness or fumbling at all as they shared their first, innocent kiss.

She was on air the few weeks following that wonderful afternoon. They decided to not announce anything quite yet, but neither of them could hold back their giddy smiles and contagious laughter at seeing each other each day. Cecilia dreamed of a May wedding, with bridesmaids in palest pink, and how handsome Tom would look standing at the altar of Little Hangleton's tiny chapel. Everything would be perfect; an excellent beginning to a lifetime spent together in happiness and harmony.

Later, at the end of that last, glorious golden summer together, Cecilia came down with a head cold. Normally, a little thing like that wouldn't have stopped her from going on her daily constitution with Tom, but her mother insisted on keeping her home to rest. Tom came to their door to collect her, and was shown into the parlor instead, to find Cecilia drinking tea, tucked under a woolen blanket.

"Ah, darling, I'm sorry you're feeling so poorly," he said, kneeling before her chair. "Tomorrow, then. We'll take a ride twice as long as usual."

"Your ride shouldn't be spoiled because of me," Cecilia said, resting the back of her hand on his cheek. "Go ahead. Enjoy the beautiful weather we're having."

Tom grinned at her. "I'll bring you some of those wildflowers we saw last week," he declared. "That will cheer you."

"I'd love that." He bid her and her parents farewell, before letting himself out and setting off on his ride.

The first sign that something was wrong was when the Riddles' cook, Mrs. Dalton, arrived at the Spencers' back door that evening and asked if the young Mr. Riddle was taking his tea with the banker and his daughter.

"Mr. Tom Riddle?" Cecilia overheard the maid say. "No, he stopped by briefly after luncheon, then left again, as young Miss Spencer is poorly. We've not seen him since."

"He's not been home in hours, and the missus is worried," Mrs. Dalton went on, sounding just as concerned as her employer. "He's usually home from his rides by now. Oh, I do hope there's been no foul play. Oh dear."

Cecilia overrode her mother's objections and went to the Riddle mansion at once, despite the darkening sky and approaching evening. Mrs. Riddle welcomed her into their parlor without ceremony. "I'm beside myself," she cried, wringing a lace-trimmed handkerchief. "I don't know where he is. He's never out this late. Mr. Riddle is out with our gardener and the butler looking for him."

"I'll stay until he's found, ma'am," Cecilia promised, and they tried to pass the time playing cards or reading.

Mr. Riddle and the servants returned many hours later, covered in mud and damp. All they had found of Tom was his faithful horse, Hannibal, tethered to a cluster of trees a mile or so outside the village limits. "Nothing more," Mr. Riddle said, looking at his wife with a shuttered look of quiet despair. "I fear --" He swallowed and said nothing more.

Cecilia stood and went to him -- this man that was to have been her father-in-law one day. "Sir," she said quietly, "if there's anything I can do..."

"You'll let us have our privacy," he said bluntly, not meeting her eyes. "Peters will see you back to your home."

She did not let the news touch her until the butler had escorted her to her front door, and she had walked past the questioning eyes of her parents and their servants, until she was safe within the confines of her bedroom and allowed to remember.

Cecilia's last memory of Tom on that day was the final smile he threw over his shoulder towards her. The twinkle in his dark eyes. His jaunty, confident stride.

That Tom Riddle had left her, and she never saw him again.

* * *

They held a service for Tom at the chapel three weeks later, once all leads had gone cold, and the entire village prayed for his return -- or at the very least, his life. Their friends, and their friends' parents, all approached Cecilia in turns, expressing their hope that Tom was safe, wherever he was.

Cecilia herself was numb. She wasn't sure if it had sunk in just yet; that Tom was gone, had left her, and might never come back to her. His imprint was everywhere: on the chestnut-colored Hannibal, on the main street, in her parlor, in her mind. She could not escape the memory of his rich laugh, or his hands on her waist as they danced, or his sweet baritone voice singing show tunes, or his haunting eyes...

Her mother seemed to think it a shame that her best chance at being married had gone. "Of course I'm sorry the boy is missing," Mrs. Spencer told her garden club friends, when she thought Cecilia wasn't listening. "But now it seems we'll have to start from scratch with Ceil. I'm sure she'll have no trouble attracting another young man, pretty as she is."

She went up to the tallest hill outside the village, one day in October -- she had started thinking of it as their hill. Hers and Tom's. But Tom had been missing for two months now, and no one expected to find him alive, if find him they did. Cecilia slid out of her horse's saddle, and sank into the grassy hillside, and wept as her heart broke into irretrievable pieces.


	2. Act Two

**Disclaimer:** Harry Potter is not mine.

A winter passed in silence, with the village's hopes for Tom's well-being fading with every day that brought more snow and frigid air. Then spring came, with blossoms on the trees and crops in the surrounding fields, and the usual spate of local girls being married off to their beaus with pomp and revelry. Cecilia could feel nothing towards those other girls, who saw their dreams realized as they became wives to the men they loved. She only knew that she should have been one of them.

April and May passed. There were weddings and funerals, births and deaths, fair and foul weather, occasional news from the outside world. And still Tom did not return to her.

Dot from the dressmaker's was the first to see the stranger, wandering up the main road like a man in a daze. There were no shoes on his feet, and a heavy growth of beard obscured his cheeks and chin. Shortly after that, Mr. Epping, the proprietor of the Hanged Man, passed him on the sidewalk, and once his report had been added to Dot's, the entire village raced out of doors to catch a glimpse of the lost young man who looked startlingly like young Mr. Tom Riddle.

"I daresay it's him!" the biddies crowed to each other on their street corners and in their parlors. "But heavens to Betsy, where on earth has he been?"

Cecilia was not in Little Hangleton that day, for she had gone with Enid Baker into Great Hangleton to volunteer at the orphanage, as they usually did on Thursday afternoons. She missed the rush of villagers to the Riddle mansion, nearly pounding down the door to grab the senior Mr. Riddle's attention.

"What the devil is going on down there?" he cried from a first-storey window, after several bar patrons had tried and failed to get past the butler. He had a deep scowl for them all. "What is the world coming to, that people are storming through private houses?"

"Sir, Mr. Riddle sir!" Mr. Epping from the Hanged Man cried. "Young Tom is back! He's come back, sir! It's a miracle!"

Mr. Riddle stared down at them all, his face torn between disbelief, anger, and a painful flicker of hope. But how was it possible that, after all these months, Tom was still alive? What had happened to him, that he had gone away for so long yet returned whole and unharmed? Why had he left Little Hangleton, and his family, and his girl?

Where had he _been_?

Mr. Riddle slammed his window shut again, but the people from the village refused to leave, for now, coming up the long, winding drive that led up the hill to the Riddle mansion, was the stranger himself, walking with purpose and an impression of confidence. Now that they were close enough, the villagers could see that his eyes were just like young Tom's, and the way he carried himself was very similar, and the color of his hair an exact match.

Finally, to put all of their curiousity and anxiety to rest, Frank Bryce, the barber's teenage son, stepped forward, towards the bearded man in tattered clothes. "Tom?" he said. "Is that really you?"

The stranger stopped in his tracks and stared at Frank for a long moment, during which nearly everyone present held their breath. "Tell your father I'll be down to see him later today," he said -- and it was indeed Tom Riddle's voice. "I'm in sore need of a trim. He's not to have any other business when I arrive."

"Of course, sir," Frank said, grinning ridiculously, and, touching his forelock, he went running back into the village.

The crowd in front of the Riddle mansion burst into activity at that, rushing forward to ask all kinds of questions, and to reach out and touch him to make sure he was _really here_, and to exclaim to each other that they'd known all along that Tom would come back -- but Tom viciously wrenched himself away from them and mounted the front stairs of his childhood home.

"It's the middle of the bloody day," he spat, glaring at them all. "You've jobs and lives to tend to. Get off of our property!" With that, he flung open the front door and slammed it shut behind him.

No one was quite sure what to make of Tom's rudeness, but they were more than willing to look past it -- he was anxious to see his parents again, that was all. All that evening, Tom was the toast of the pubs, and everyone drank to his health and his miraculous return.

"I wonder if he'll say where he's been all this time," said Mr. Carew, the editor of Little Hangleton's local newspaper. "Been gone since late August, hasn't he, and here we are now in June!"

"Did you see his feet?" Dot from the dressmaker's said. "Bare! No shoes at all!"

"And his clothes look like the ones he was wearing on the day he was last seen," Mr. Epping pointed out.

While speculation ran rampant in the Hanged Man and throughout the village, Cecilia and Enid Baker returned from their weekly visit to the orphanage in Great Hangleton, the Spencers' Model T Ford banging and rumbling up the street, and parted before Enid's door.

"Something's got the villagers all riled up," Enid said, sniffing, as her butler helped her descend from the automobile. "I can't imagine what's made them so hot and bothered."

"I suppose someone's daughter has run off with the milkman, or some such thing," Cecilia said, and they both laughed. Mr. Graves, the elderly milkman in Little Hangleton, was certainly not the kind of man one ran off with. "I shall see you tomorrow at Hetty's for tea?"

"Of course. Good day, Ceil." Enid waved to her, as Cecilia pulled on the clutch and continued rattling down the street towards her own home. Her father had resisted the idea of teaching her how to drive at first, but Cecilia had fought for the privilege, and now considered driving the only thing she truly enjoyed these days, for she had sold her horse several months earlier.

The Spencers were waiting for her in the parlor when Cecilia stepped inside, removing her hat and driving gloves. "Why, Mother," she said, raising her eyebrows at their sober gazes, "you both look as though you've received a spot of bad news. Is someone ill?"

"Ceil --" Her father stood and put his hands on her upper arms, squeezing gently. "We have some news for you. Some very _good_ news."

Cecilia's breath caught in her throat, and she hardly dared move. "What is it, Father?" she breathed.

"Young Tom Riddle has returned."

Cecilia jumped, heart pounding, and reached for her recently discarded gloves. Oh God. Oh God. She had to go to him, see if he was well, ask him --

"You're not going anywhere, Ceil," her father said firmly, maintaining his grip on her arms. "The boy's just come back from heaven knows where, dirty and dazed and half out of his mind --"

"I need to see him, Father," she begged, her vision already becoming obscured by tears. "If he sees me, he'll know he's safe now, and he'll be all right --"

"Your father has put his foot down, Cecilia," Mrs. Spencer said, standing as well. "You're not to go anywhere near the Riddles until they've made it clear that young Tom is up to social situations. God only knows where he's been, and what he's seen during his time away. He needs rest and quiet. Do you understand?"

Cecilia stared at both of them, wide-eyed, for several tense moments, before she wrenched herself out of her father's grasp and ran up to her bedroom, to sob with relief into her pillow that her beloved had come back to her.

The afternoon slid by slowly, so slowly, and Cecilia spent the rest of her day drafting letters, none of which passed muster. Crumpled sheets of scratch paper littered the floor of her bedroom, and one or two broken pen nibs lay at the corner of her desk.

_My darling Tom --_

No, too soon.

_Dear Mr. Riddle, It has come to my attention that you have recently returned from a --_

Horrid. Too formal. It sounded as though they barely knew each other.

The cook's son came up with Cecilia's supper on a tray for her, and she picked at the food while she continued to draft letter after letter. She had, in truth, never actually written Tom. They had gone directly from being introduced to one another at Mrs. Howard's garden party, to being inseparable. There had simply never been a need for her to write him, because he had always been there.

Her dilemma was solved, however, much later that evening. The sun had long set, and the sounds of the house -- servants cleaning, her parents listening to the BBC -- had settled into silence. Save the light, tapping noise at her bedroom window.

Cecilia, who had fallen asleep still fully dressed, started awake. Another quiet _plink_ came at the glass, followed by a muffled curse from far below. She parted the curtains warily, biting her lip.

And found Tom himself standing below her window, rubbing the top of his head and frowning.

At once, Cecilia raised the sash and stuck her head out, drinking in the sight of him after so many months. His skin was paler than she remembered, his limbs thinner, his eyes not as bright. There was something different about the way he held himself, and the set of his mouth -- but it was him, it was really _him_.

"Come down, I won't shout," he called softly, and Cecilia nodded and closed the window again. Grabbing her housecoat, she stepped nimbly through the sleeping house, taking care to avoid all the little creaks and groans in the hall and on the stairs, and then she was outside, and then he was there, larger than life, standing just before her.

Cecilia flung herself into Tom's arms, clutching at his achingly familiar shoulders and hanging on for dear life. "Dear God, Tom," she whispered, crying freely, "I thought I'd never see you again."

"Marry me, Ceil," he said hoarsely.

Cecilia started away, heart in her throat, unsure what to say. They hadn't seen one another or spoken in ten months, and this was the first thing he asked her? "Tom," she breathed, hoping she could pretend she hadn't heard him, "I've missed you so much --"

"Marry me," he said again, a bit desperately, and he squeezed her hands in his.

"But -- but where have you been?" she said, drawing him away from her house and under the tree that shaded the back garden. "You just left, Tom -- left me! How am I supposed to believe that now you want to --"

"You remember that rundown little shack outside the village?" Tom asked her, not releasing her hands. His eyes seemed wild somehow, devoid of their usual good humour. "The Gaunts, I said they lived there?"

"Yes, but --"

"The daughter -- she _-_- _God_, she -- I was riding that day, that last day I saw you, and I was pushing Hannibal fairly hard, so I stopped him to rest. I was near there, near the shack. She came out -- the Gaunt girl -- and said I looked tired and would I like a cool drink?"

Cecilia gaped, horrified at the mere mental picture of the dilapidated shack she had seen last summer. "Tom, you --"

"I said yes." He moved a few steps from her, shuddering and running his hands through his hair. "She poisoned me somehow, Ceil, and I -- I felt -- suddenly I needed to be with her, and we --"

"No, don't tell me," Cecilia whispered, tears sliding down her face. She had thought that maybe he had been abducted, or robbed and killed, but never would she have suspected that he had run away with another woman. "Tom, you need to go --"

"I left once I realised what she was doing to me," Tom insisted, grabbing her hands again; Cecilia tried to shove him away. "I wasn't in my right mind, I was absolutely mad -- if you leave me, Ceil, if you don't help me forget that horrid woman --"

Cecilia was crying freely now, stifling her sobs in the sleeve of her housecoat. "No, Tom, no --"

"She tricked me -- I actually _married_ her, but I'll have it annulled, I can't bear the sight of her --"

"No, Tom, please --"

"God _damnit_, Ceil!" Tom shouted, and he lunged for her, clamping his hands around her arms. "Don't do this!"

"How do I know you won't leave me as well?" Cecilia screamed, mindless of how much noise they made; someone had surely heard them by now. "You left me once, last August -- I don't want to be left behind ever again."

"I won't, Ceil," Tom declared, face darkening in frustration. "That woman, she --"

"You're not making sense," she cried. "How could you be poisoned against me? How could you be _made_ to -- to love anyone else -- unless you never loved me at all?"

"Ceil --"

"What is the meaning of this?" Mr. Spencer appeared at the back door of the house, dressing gown pulled around his portly frame, brows drawn together in consternation. "Mr. Riddle, how dare you harm my daughter when she has done you no offense."

"Father," Cecilia said, and she at last wrenched free of Tom's slackened grip and ran to Mr. Spencer. "Please, Father, send him away --"

"There will be no need for that." Tom's voice had gone chilly, cold enough to make Cecilia shudder in horror. She turned to see that his eyes were ink black, flat and emotionless as he stared at her and her father. "I had thought that I knew Miss Spencer's mind, but she has proved beyond a doubt that I in fact do not."

"Then perhaps you should go, Mr. Riddle," Mr. Spencer said evenly, placing his hand on the small of Cecilia's back.

"Perhaps I should. Good evening, sir." Tom inclined his head to both of them, and stalked off without another word.

In a village the size of Little Hangleton, it took no time at all before everyone knew what had happened in the Spencers' back garden. Tom was not seen outside his parents' home for weeks afterward, and Cecilia herself was followed by nearly everyone's eyes, as she went out with friends and shopped with her mother, and especially when she was spotted with George Wyatt, the doctor's son.

Cecilia only told Enid Baker exactly what had happened with Tom that night, but even that version was not the complete truth. Enid did not know about Tom's claims of being poisoned, nor that he had mentioned the Gaunt girl, only that Tom had eloped with another woman, tired of her, and returned thinking he could pick up with Cecilia again as though nothing had happened. Enid had been indignant and claimed Cecilia had done the only right thing, which did much to cheer her, but nothing to mend her broken heart. Part of her longed to race to the top of the hill outside Little Hangleton, where the Riddle mansion stood, to throw herself at Tom's feet and beg him to take her back. She could still have her dream wedding, with the pink bridesmaids dresses, and her perfect life as Mrs. Riddle, and this incident with the Gaunt girl would be safely buried at the back of everyone's minds.

And yet... Cecilia did not believe his story of being somehow bamboozled by an ugly chit with a cool drink of water. He had left her, and for ten months had been in the company of another woman. The fact that he had even admitted to marrying the girl drove home the last nail in the coffin. Tom Riddle was beyond redemption in Cecilia Spencer's eyes; beyond forgiveness, beyond her love.

So when she agreed to marry George Wyatt that fall, it was with only the slightest twinge of regret at what might have been.


End file.
